ABSTRACT
Status segregation by gender is not as extreme as status segregation by race, and the problem is becoming less marked over time. Human capital theory has attempted to explain women’s concentration in low status positions in terms of female domestic obligations preventing them from obtaining the skills they need for superior jobs. Human capital theory argues that employers’ decisions to hire men and women for a given job are motivated by concerns over conserving training costs. Human capital theory argues that women are kept out of high-status positions to prevent the loss of personnel. However, sometimes women are confined to low-status positions to accelerate the loss of personnel. Human capital theory argues that the world consists of two types of workers: low-turnover men and high-turnover women. Synthetic turnover will be most noticeable when surplus labor exists with large bureaucracies that use seniority or tenure-based systems of payment. Women’s confinement to low-status jobs is primarily a function of employee discrimination.
